The importance of communication

The importance of communication

I keep playing with players who hardly say anything in game apart from "ss" and the occasional "noob" and it made me thinking, how much information do you actually get from ss compared to other messages?

Examples of calling SS
"SS" - someone lost sight of a laning opponent, this is actually quite useless most of the time without more information
"SS mid" - someone lost sight of the mid opponent, slightly more helpful...
"SS mid, low hp" - mid probably went back. Helps me make sure not to overextend in 30 seconds and keep an eye on mid
"SS mid, care top/bot/jungle" followed by a ping - Aha they might be ganking.
"SS top" - one of the most abused phrases in the entire game. If you have to write this more than 3 times, go back ASAP and ward the river. Calling misses will not be useful anymore unless you can spot them going for a gank.

A lot of players say ss to justify their own responsibility, to come up with "at least it's not my fault" and the ability to blame their teammates, but that's about it. Sometimes I think that players actually want you to die so they don't give first blood.

Not seldom have I been accused for not calling ss, despite clearly pinging a champion walking down the river or pinging someone to back. It's worth remembering that chatting about can harm your CS!

Pings
Someone pings Renekton walking towards mid - compare this to someone saying ss. With a ping you automatically react to check the minimap and immediately spot where they are.

Someone pings where they just spotted the jungler (and says so) - now imagine if you're bot and just learned the jungler is somewhere top. Use this to your advantage!

"Ward here!" - this helps the jungler so much. Take another route or note what time it will expire and plan for a monstrous gank on the person who is about to ward it.

Be proactive
Instead of saying ss and hugging your tower while your minions push, is there anything else you can do? Maybe the push was so big you can go back to buy something, or maybe it's a good opportunity to counter-gank or go with the jungler to take them out.

React to whats happening in another lanes and in the river. React to dragon fights. No, you don't need to run off and auto-attack it once with your Ryze because it might actually help more to stay mid and keep their AP from going down.

All of the above is near impossible without communication. Let your team know you are coming to gank, or that you are going back etc.

Too much information
Pointing out obvious mistakes / flaming - this should be obvious. It's really not necessary to re-iterate how stupid that initiation was, and definitely not in place to call for a report unless the game is over.

Telling your team of every purchase and how much more gold you need for this and that.

Writing ss every 5 seconds while tower hugging. After a couple of repeated lines your team will be less likely to notice what you are saying. Instead of this, try a simple "ss all the time, care! (and come gank god damnit)"

Writing ss right after your laning opponent died. Surprising, isn't?

Writing in /all chat. This is never useful and does never contribute to anything. Period.

Creating confidence
When playing with random people they are very likely to assume that you suck and they are best. Try to inject some respect in the team by saying small things like:

"Come gank / good ganking opportunity / etc" - This is a lot more effective than crying for help or calling the jungler a noob. If you let them think there is a good opportunity to grab a kill, it's more appealing for them to come. If you are top or bot, investing in a pink ward could be well worth it!

"Brb getting wards" or "Brb getting oracles" - After supporting hundreds of games I've noticed how much impact this has. Two things that win games are 1) map awareness and 2) not flaming. By telling your team you are helping them with map awareness, you reduce the likeliness of being flamed for not warding (even if you do). Win win!

"Dragon/Baron spawning at XX:XX" - a most brilliant treat. Not only will your team have an advantage to the next river adventure but you will also ensure your team that at least somebody keeps track of things. Even announcing that blue buff is about to respawn is great.

"I can take blue buff myself, please don't help me" - one of my pet peevees in this game is junglers who insist on helping with giving me blue buff when I'm AP mid. Not only is there an annoying risk of them stealing it by mistake (too often) but it also kills their valuable time. Yes, many carries need help with their first and maybe second blue, but not all do. If I'm a level 6 Karthus or Sion when blue spawns, just leave me alone with my shiny buff and be useful somewhere!

"Sorry, my mistake". Congrats, if you use this phrase after dying you might just have won the game.

What else?

What are your special communication tricks that improves the chance of winning a game?

It may seem stupid or underrated (and mostly neglected) but I do believe those tips, at the end of the day DO make a difference.

GJ.

Edit: was thinking of some other communication tips. To be honest, you pretty much wrapped it all up.

But I sometimes use another one (even though you really have to be in the mood for it and your teammates mustn't be jerks) when one of your teammates fails somehow and seems to fall behind, you just push him up, saying things like "np, it's ok" or "do like this or do like that and you'll be fine!". It's very situational, can't remember anything specific now, but I've had some very good results with this one also. You will raise his morale and even if he doesn't perform as well as the rest of the team his "ratios" will climb for certain and he/she will be so much helpful both for him and the team. It gave me victories as well.

Completely agree with the points above, raising the morale by commenting on both their mistakes and their glory. "No worries, I'll come help you!" and "Great job, are you OK on your own now top?" has another side effect too.. it actually affects the others!

Interestingly, there are only four kinds of people when it comes to commenting an event:

- The pessimist
- The optimist
- The silent/neutral
- The opportunist

Take a look at the last one, my guess is around 10% of all players fall into that category. He or she will pretty much mimic others' feelings, if somebody says the game is over they'll agree. If somebody says GP should be reported, they'll join in with the flaming. But on the other hand, if someone is in a winning mood this group will be easily affected by it!

Yesterday I hit 1500 Elo for the first time - mostly thanks to improving communication in game. And champ select of course

But I sometimes use another one (even though you really have to be in the mood for it and your teammates mustn't be jerks) when one of your teammates fails somehow and seems to fall behind, you just push him up, saying things like "np, it's ok" or "do like this or do like that and you'll be fine!". It's very situational, can't remember anything specific now, but I've had some very good results with this one also. You will raise his morale and even if he doesn't perform as well as the rest of the team his "ratios" will climb for certain and he/she will be so much helpful both for him and the team. It gave me victories as well.

I have a good example from last night!

In one game I got 1/9 as a jungler and did horribly bad, in the following game I was teamed up with two of the previous game's opponents. Good for me of course, but thanks to good communication from all 3 we could set the morale for the whole team and win the game. I apologised and took a different champion and guess what - nobody flamed me!

What are your special communication tricks that improves the chance of winning a game?

My special trick is trying to convince Riot & the community of adding a real solo queue option. A game mode where premade teams are not allowed. Unfortunately, Riot does not seem to care about people who play solo. As long as I have hope that Riot fixes this I will keep on trying!

I don't think there's anything wrong with using /all just... to have some fun. I hate it when people flame their teammates or opponents in allchat, but "**** Ashe, nice shot oO" if you got caught and died by a brilliant Ashe arrow or "and stay out!" after chasing someone out of your jungle is just having a friendly chat with your opponents. As long as you don't spam, I don't really see the problem!

In general, never flame lanes that are doing poorly. Try to suggest what they could be doing better in a friendly way and try to help them by ganking et cetera. There is exactly zero utility in telling people they suck. If you do this, you care more about having a chance to whine at people than about trying to win your game.

Edit: Also, asking questions can be super useful. ("How are you doign at top? Need help?")